Files on vanished child opened
April 19, 1998
Police and social workers with Child Protective Service have been unable to determine the child’s fate since April 1997, and have been unable to get the boy’s parents to cooperate. Big Island Family Court Judge Ben Gaddis released the case details at the request of The Advertiser, saying concerns about the safety of the child outweigh those that normally govern confidentiality in his court. Neither of the child’s parents — Peter Kema Sr., 27, and his wife, Jaylin Kema, 28 — would discuss details of their son’s disappearance. “Right now my kids and I are dealing with it emotionally,” said Jaylin Kema, who has three other children, 11, 9 and 4 years old. “I don’t want to comment on this. We are dealing with it on our own.” Police have classified Peter’s disappearance as a missing persons case, and the FBI recently opened a preliminary kidnapping investigation. “There is no cause to believe it is a homicide case,” said Big Island Detective Glenn Nojiri. “We have no body. I don’t want to even speculate that it is a homicide. That would cast unnecessary blame.” Susan Chandler, director of the state Department of Human Services, was unaware of the Kema case until Friday afternoon when she received a synopsis of facts released to The Advertiser by Gaddis. “This certainly sounds awful,” Chandler said. “I am glad this has gotten to the police now. It sounds to me there is something strange about this family who doesn’t know where its child is. “It is very ominous,” she said. “The department will certainly look into this.” Nothing that Peter’s parents have told Big Island police about their boy’s disappearance can be confirmed, including a frequently repeated account that Peter was sent to live with a woman on Oahu named Auntie Rose. It is not even clear if the child disappeared in April 1997 or August 1997. Lee Ann Kobayashi, the boy’s aunt, said she and other family members have begged Peter’s parents for information but have been met with hostility. They first suspected something was wrong when there was no birthday celebration for the child last May. Then they would see the family driving around Hilo without Peter, she said. “We don’t know what to do,” said Kobayashi, the sister of Peter Kema Sr. “We get no answers. The only answer we get is ‘Mind your own business.’ I have had many, many sleepless nights on this.” Kobayashi is fearful about what may have happened to the child they all called “Peter Boy.” Her heart tells her he is alive. Her head reasons he is not. Earlier abuse According to Kobayashi, she and other relatives had tried to get Peter Boy away from his parents for two years because they feared he was being abused. The Kemas were the focus of an earlier Child Protective Service investigation that began a week after Peter was born in May 1991. According to court documents, the boy suffered numerous fractures — including a spiral fracture to the left leg — during his first four months. But his parents eventually regained custody, and the case was closed on Oct. 31, 1995. In April 1997, CPS was told that Peter’s arm may have been broken. But the agency could not confirm that because social workers could never find the boy. Detectives opened a missing persons case in January after a social worker persuaded the boy’s mother to call police. “CPS went to the parents’ house to do a follow-up on an investigation they were looking into,” Detective Nojiri said. “They wanted to see the boy. At that point it was established by them that the parents did not know where the boy was.” Peter Kema Sr. and Jaylin Kema told police they had not seen the child for several months — through a semester of elementary school, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The Kemas said that they felt Peter was safe, but their accounts differed of who was supposed to be caring for him. Peter Kema Sr. told Nojiri that he had traveled to Honolulu in August 1997 to look for work and brought Peter Boy so he wouldn’t be lonely. They lived in a tent in Aala Park, he said. Seeking proof of the Oahu trip, the detective asked Kema if he had filled out any job applications. “He said every place that he had gone to had no job openings,” Nojiri said. “I said, ‘You must have filled applications.’ He said no.” Kema told Nojiri that midway through the Honolulu visit, he returned with Peter to Hilo for a scheduled meeting with a CPS social worker. But the meeting was scheduled on a state holiday, and the CPS offices were closed, Nojiri said. So father and son returned to Honolulu, Kema said, and it was then that he gave his son to Auntie Rose Makuakane, a lauhala weaver from the Halawa area and a cousin of his stepfather known to the family for many years. Auntie Rose often went to Aala Park on weekends to sell hats, Kema told Nojiri. “He said he was running out of money and he didn’t have any food, so when he saw Rose, well, Rose did not have any children and she agreed to take care of the boy,” Nojiri said. “And she supposedly tells the father she would enroll the boy in Kamehameha Schools. Or that she may move to the Mainland, maybe to Florida.” No evidence Nojiri has traced every lead, and so far has no evidence that Auntie Rose exists.
“Then when I talked to the father again about this, he said maybe she wasn’t a Makuakane,” Nojiri said. Kema told the detective that he had no current address for Auntie Rose and no way of actually finding her or his son. Lack of interest In talks with the boy’s parents, Nojiri said he has explained they are not suspects in a criminal investigation. But he finds their apparent lack of interest in the search disturbing. “They never call on their own,” he said. “They call me when I ask. Other than that, they don’t call.” In the case synopsis provided by the Family Court, social workers report that Jaylin Kema does not know Auntie Rose and apparently had never heard of the woman until Jan. 20, when the social worker visited the Kema’s Hilo home. Jaylin Kema said she believed Peter was living with a relative on Oahu. The synopsis says child protection officials have requested information on how to find Auntie Rose and repeatedly asked Peter’s parents to bring the boy to their Hilo offices. “The parents have not brought the child to meetings and the child has not been present on visits to the home,” the synopsis states. “Peter Kema Jr. remains missing.” Intervention failed Lee Ann Kobayashi said the evasive behavior makes her angry, and that she and other family members have felt for two years that Peter was being abused again by his parents. “We would approach them and say, what are you doing? We tried to take that child away from them many times, me and my sisters. Many times,” Kobayashi said. “We were unsuccessful. Wherever that boy was, they were right there. No matter where he was, they were with him. They wouldn’t let him out of their sight.” She said they reported the suspected abuse to CPS through much of 1996 and part of 1997. By last summer, however, Peter had not been seen for several weeks. There had been no May 1 birthday party and no Mother’s Day celebration, Kobayashi said. She said the child’s parents always gave reasons why the boy wasn’t around. “It was funny — they always made up a story that he was with a neighbor or on Oahu. Or with a friend. Or he was off camping, or fishing,” she said. When family members and social workers asked for police help, they were told no investigation could begin unless one of the child’s parents reported him missing, Kobayashi said. That finally happened in January, when Jaylin Kema first heard about Auntie Rose. No one in the Kema family believes there is an Auntie Rose, Kobayashi said. “That’s a made-up person. They are not being honest about where Peter Boy is. They haven’t been truthful from the start.” [ top ] |
